We don’t need more traffic

Posted
Thursday, July 18, 2013 1:00 pm

To the Editor:

I am completely against putting a hotel off of Apponaug Cove in a neighborhood setting where you have young children, an elementary school and elderly residents. If you live in the east section of Warwick (Buttonwoods, Oakland Beach, Warwick Neck, Conimicut), it takes over a half-hour or more to get to Route 95 to travel to work, shopping, appointments, etc. There are only two ways to travel from this area: West Shore Road and Airport Road through busy Hoxsie.

Now to add to this congestive nightmare the city is leaning toward allowing another hotel to be built, which will devalue our homes and have strange people wandering in our neighborhoods. I have lived in Warwick since I was a child where there were open areas to play and be safe. I married and raised a family here, again not worrying about bringing up my children in a safe area. Then without considering the citizens of Warwick, the city is planning on allowing another hotel to be built in our neighborhood. Within a five-mile radius of the airport there are 12 hotels. So can someone explain to me and to the rest of the Warwick taxpaying citizens why we need to add another hotel in our neighborhood?

I can’t imagine that we need that many rooms within a five-mile radius, not including the rest of the neighboring cities in this state. Leave our neighborhoods and Apponaug Cove alone. Give us back some of the pleasures that we expected to enjoy as we purchased our homes and started our families. Stop turning this city into a commercial haven for private corporations.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention how this hotel is going to improve our economy. Let’s see, typically a hotel of 120 or so rooms will employ 20 full-time staff and the rest of the staff is comprised of part-time un-benefited employees. Hotel employees make minimum wage, surely this is not going to improve the local economy in any way.

I was not aware of the meeting held last Tuesday, but I will be at the next meeting to voice my concerns and see how they are answered.